Patricia More O'Ferrall , who has died aged 103, was the last survivor of a racy element of British social life in the 1930s.
She was born in Australia on January 20, 1914 as Patricia Kenneth Richards, daughter of Kenneth Richards, of Cowcumbla, Cootamundra, New South Wales (best known as the birthplace of the cricketer Sir Donald Bradman), and his former wife Eileen Mary, who settled in Hertford Street, London, and married secondly, in 1940, Sir Stephenson Kent, KCB, an old Harrovian member of the Council of the Ministry of Munitions.
Pat first travelled to Britain as a girl of five in 1919 and she came again when she was 17. She was in Britain again when she met George ("Grandy"), 9th Earl of Jersey, who had succeeded to the title in 1923. The actress Virginia Cherrill (Chaplin's leading lady, who would marry Cary Grant) suggested that Pat's mother more or less set up the marriage.
On January 12, 1932 Pat married him at St Margaret's, Westminster, dressed in ivory satin, and with an enormous number of society guests. Her father was not present, though the young couple honeymooned in Australia. They returned via New York and settled at Osterley Park, their Robert Adam house in Middlesex.
The next few years involved their presence at Ascot, Pat Jersey attending the State Opening of Parliament as a peeress, opening Osterley to visitors, attending numerous society weddings and sitting on charity committees.
In 1934 the Jerseys had a daughter, Caroline, who first married Viscount Melgund, heir to the Earl of Minto, then John Stuart, and finally James Ogilvy. Cecil Beaton took stunning photographs of the Jerseys at Osterley. As usual, he resented her growing old, citing her in 1969 as a gossiping "pickled fruit" at the memorial service for the Earl of Pembroke.
The Jersey marriage was haphazard. When, in 1935, the dashing Cunningham-Reids took Virginia Cherrill and Robin Filmer-Wilson on a visit to Osterley, Grandy Jersey was all alone and did not seem to know where his wife was.
Virginia Cherrill later noted that Pat Jersey was not much interested in modern art, whereas Grandy, underemployed at a bank, loved it and was soon escorting Virginia round the galleries of Mayfair. In 1936 he paid a Canadian dancer called Olive Clivden to be "discovered" in bed with him at his flat in Sloane Court as a precursor to divorce; afterwards he enjoyed a brief affair with her.
Grandy Jersey further humiliated Pat by publishing a letter in The Times on May 1, 1936 to the effect that he withdrew every authority he may have granted and would no longer be responsible for her debts. On January 11, 1937 the Countess petitioned for divorce. The Earl was later blackballed as a bounder when put up for Brooks'.
In July 1937 Jersey married Virginia Cherrill, and in September Pat married Filmer-Wilson at Caxton Hall. She had presented her ex-husband and his new wife with an unusual wedding present, having Caroline, then three, delivered by the chauffeur to him with a message that the child was not to be returned for a week.
However, the couples were soon on friendly terms again. During the war, Pat and Virginia Cherrill were found selling flowers for the Red Cross together outside the Ritz.
Robin Filmer-Wilson, then a banker, was a grandson of Arthur Wilson, of Tranby Croft, scene of the baccarat scandal involving the future Edward VII and his circle. When the war came Filmer-Wilson served as a major in the Royal Artillery (Leicestershire Yeomanry).
While he was overseas, his wife met Joe Kennedy, jnr, the eldest son of the former American Ambassador to Britain. She invited Kennedy to Crastock Farm, where she was living at the time, and they embarked on an affair. After his birthday Kennedy wrote: "It wasn't at all like a birthday at home, but if I were going to have it any place but home again, I would take a duplication of last night."
Joe Kennedy was killed in action on August 12, 1944 and two days later Filmer-Wilson died of injuries received in Italy, leaving a son, James, and daughter Sarah, who later married the rotund property millionaire, Duncan Davidson, a former page at the 1953 Coronation.
After Kennedy's death, Pat wrote to his staunchly Catholic mother, Rose: "Our love was strong, true and unspoilt – please forgive me if you blame me for loving him so much that he wanted to stay here and took this job. He would have taken some job anyhow and the only way I could have made him go back to America would have been to say I didn't love him." She sent photographs and letters and offered to send more. Rose never replied but old Joe sent a cable telling Pat to send no more letters.
On June 25, 1953 Pat married Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Laycock, TD, then a widower and the younger brother of Major-General Sir Robert Laycock, and they lived at the Mill House, Sutton Courtenay, where the Colonel created a fine garden, and in Eaton Square in London. He died in London in 1977. In 1986 she married her fourth husband, Roderic More O'Ferrall, the racing trainer and breeder. He died in 1990.
Pat More O'Ferrall was still out and about in London in 2010.
Telegraph, London